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Friday, 25 March 2011

Online Gaming Nerd Rage

Since I was a about 4 years old I have been obsessed with computer games. From early arcade games, computers and consoles to modern technologies, I have spent a large portion of my life in front of a computer/TV screen. Admittedly it sometimes terrifies me to think of how many months/years of my life have been spent with a control pad/keyboard in hand shooting people in the face and shouting "noooooob" at them, fucking up dragons with wizards spells and shit, solving puzzles and trying to unlock that urban myth of a scene where Lara Croft gets her fun bags out...but I don't regret it.

The world has witnessed unimaginable changes in the computer games industry since the 90's, with a steady flow of new technologies, games consoles and hardware innovations, the games industry has never been more popular. One of the main reasons attributed to this surge in popularity is online gaming, giving gamers the ability to test out their skills against other gamers worldwide.

This sounds like a nice idea in theory, people of different nationalities coming together for a bit of friendly competition. Maybe we can learn about each others culture whilst enjoying a relaxing game? Maybe we can make friends for life and play as a team? Just maybe we can attain world peace....right? WRONG, this is about as likely as crazy teenagers running around a dark flashing room, eating bright coloured magical pills and gurning uncontrollably whilst mind numbingly repetitive 8 bit music plays after being influenced by Pacman! Actually that was a bad example.....but you get the point.

Online gaming has seemingly descended into a pit of self loathing, hatred and frustration for many of it's users...me included. What should be a relaxing past time has turned into an experience that has people temporarily losing control of their temper (and their dignity), and regressing to child like behavior. These are my top reasons for hating the snivelling little brats that pollute the world of online gaming...

The inability to accept their own incompetencies- We've heard it all before. "You're cheating! LAG! (latency that causes the game to fall out of sync with actions of a player and the reaction of the game), YOU'RE CHEATING!!" As soon as the nerd rager starts to lose, they will blame every available variable that may have contributed to their poor performance, when in fact the game is working perfectly well and their inadequate dexterity and strategy is at fault. The noise that a nerd rager makes when agitated can only be likened to a nasal voiced child that has snapped after his 100th atomic wedgie/milk money robbery, and the sound awakens something inside of you that invokes the undeniable urge to flush said nerd ragers head down a toilet or give them a brutal Chinese burn!

People that talk shit on their headset- Unfortunately on-line gaming has a chat room element to it, and we all know what happens in chat rooms! Unless you are using your headset to communicate with players that you are in a party with, you will at some point be subjected to a torrent of immature school boy abuse by some irritatingly high voiced child. The best thing to do is just mute the people that are annoying you, but often you will become so enraged that you will sink to their level and use your headset to challenge them to a duel with your tongue sword. They will emptily threaten to track you down and kill you, try and insult your country of origin (e.g. "hey buddy, I fucked the Queen"), tell you that you have no dick and eventually resort to racism. At times this will make you wish you could turn into a Tron Lightcycle, drive down the network, shoot out of their router port and batter them!

People with shit connections- What are you on fucking 56k dial-up? If you don't have a half decent connection, don't fucking bother. You just turned up to a gun fight with a teapot...now piss off!

Children that play 18 rated games- Before I write this, I am not making this point from the perspective of somebody that cares about the moral responsibility that parents have to protect their children from offensive material. I'm not going to tell you how to look after your kids, all I ask is that you keep them the fuck away from the games that I play! I was playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the don though!) during the day, and happened to be on a team with a group of young lads. They asked me my age, when I replied they started insinuating that I was a paedophile, using Xbox live as a method for grooming children! I pointed out to them that this game has an 18 rating, and they shouldn't be playing. They then told me that I was far too old to be playing computer games, and must therefore be a nonce. As I tried to argue with them they laughed, and I felt like an incredibly uncool Mr Belding esque character, desperately trying to be down with the kids but embarrassingly failing. I retired for the night to do some serious soul searching...despite the fact that I'd just got a Pave-low.

People that quit- Games like FIFA 11 have become unplayable if you have any skill, as 8 times out of 10 your competitor will quit as soon as they start losing. This is incredibly frustrating, as you are being robbed of both your time and XP points. I wish people could take a beating like a man, rather than living in the denial that they never lose.

I think we just have to accept that cretins exist in every corner of the world, and have infiltrated all forms of communication media....which sadly includes computer games. For some reason it seems that being given the ability to communicate remotely (and anonymously) with others triggers an impulsive behavior to argue with and abuse this stranger. Add a competitive element to the purpose of the communication, and the douchebag inside you unwillingly comes out to play.

I am very occasionally guilty of moments of nerd rage, which only fuels my hatred for this juvenile behavior more.

4 comments:

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